Bradley Manning – in his own words contains only those parts of the chat logs which relate to Bradleys motivation for leaking the documents, with everything else left out. Try reading through this and you can see straight away what nonsense Bill Keller is talking about Brad and his motives.

Words that spring to mind are moral clarity, cohesion, purity and hope, and the strongest impression you take away is exactly that sense of mission which Bill Keller says he thinks was formed retrospectively. How on earth would he explain stuff like:

and its important that it gets out – I feel, for some reason, it might actually change something

Anyone who had read the chat logs properly would not have been surprised by either Bradleys demeanour when he first took the stand or his statement of 28th Feb. The person and their intentions come through powerfully and distinctly.

And I am not surprised that Bill Keller has failed to get a sight of the Bradley people have been so moved by; that such people exist is surely beyond his comprehension and world view.

Bill Keller confuses Bradleys emotions and trauma with his motives and actions, and a nasty little piece of cynical propaganda he makes of it.

I have been involved in support for Brad since the end of 2010. And I have also been closely following your updates on Adnan Latif, whose situation I have found deeply moving.

Can I just explain that one of the main reasons I was particularly ‘hooked’ in to the Bradley Manning campaign, is because, like other people, I immediately felt that somehow it was pivotal for these very issues.

I feel very strongly that the situation with Brad is iconic – and that he is and will continue to be a powerful living testimony to the unthinkable horrors of the wider trashing of the rule of law of this past decade. And that something about him and his case will impact those who, as you say, have no voice.

I feel that it is because of these things that he took (and I believe he did do this) such drastic action – that he felt that nothing short of such a wide ranging across the board act was fitting or able to make any difference or would be respectful enough of all that dreadful suffering. And I believe that this action has set all manner of things moving on many different levels, not least in the fact that he has has had himself to really experience a measure of the inhumanity that he was protesting. And that this is now being exposed in the court room. His own testimony was eloquent and intense, and I think very significant.

David Coombs said, when asked about who Brad is the other night:

‘Brad does a lot of things really from the heart: he tends to care a lot about people and so his conduct and his actions are usually driven by that.’

I remember at the time that he was being stripped how I was particularly struck by the extraordinary carelessness of the authorities after Coombs had blown the gaffe and the world exploded – THEY STILL CARRIED ON!! Even at the highest level – Obama, Gen Jeh Johnson, were still saying nothing was amiss! And we heard the same tone of amazement that anyone should be bothered yesterday in the letter from Gen Flynn. Like they had all got so used to this shit, that it had become so standard, they wondered what on earth we were all going on about!

I believe that the hubris in this case will count towards more than just Brad’s future.

And I, for one, will be continuing to ‘support the story’ of Adnan Latif – I am writing about him (as I am British, the Shaker Aamer connection is also of great interest to me), and I will continue to follow closely. Thank you for your work.

We are all indebted to you, Kevin, Nathan Fuller at BMSN, and Alexa OBrien – all providing unique insights into Brads case which together give really toptoptop thorough reporting, without which we’d be truly screwed (and sometimes Adam K at Court House News) – and this coverage is FAR superior to msm. EXCELLENT.

Who dictates that we have make our point the stuffy way ffs? Gordon Bennett, s’art, aint it?

This seems to me like a perfectly good way of demonstrating what SHOULD be being said – and, as Kevin says, it actually puts people in the place they’d be in if it HAD been said and they’d read it. And it WAS being said, just not by Keller. And people had reactions. All good stuff, it seems to me! And then, so as not to be actually dishonest, clarified by the originators.

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